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Revitalizing Las Vegas via the Downtown Project

Richard Florida...thinks it needs a “robust community proc­ess,” in which an outside group could help build consensus with the surrounding community and create a plan that takes their wishes­ into account. “You can have serendipity,” he said. “But when you’re building a community, you also need a strategy.”
— NYT

Timothy Pratt profiled Tony Hsieh and his Downtown Project for the Sunday NYT Magazine. The project began when the chief executive of Zappos decided to lease the former City Hall, instead of buying land and building the typical Silicon Valley corporate campus. In order to provide an attractive urban community for his employees, Hsieh went one step further and started the Downtown Project, a $350 million urban experiment to build "the most community-focused large city in the world". The goal is not R.O.I. but maximizing R.O.C (Return on community) and increasing "serendipitous encounters".